


Akuma

by ThatFiend



Category: Bleach
Genre: M/M, Romance, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-08 04:15:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20307283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatFiend/pseuds/ThatFiend
Summary: Ichigo never had let go of the those he held dear easily, not when they were all that was keeping him together.





	Akuma

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Mangaka](https://archiveofourown.org/works/281305) by [Sarshi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarshi/pseuds/Sarshi). 

> Massive thank you to Sarshi for giving me permission to write this. I just regret I was late to my own deadline 🙈
> 
> This is a direct sequel to Sarshi's fic [Mangaka](https://archiveofourown.org/works/281305?view_adult=true), so if you haven't read it before I strongly suggest reading it first and coming back to this fic.

The car ride was stagnant with Isshin’s unsure silence and Ichigo’s indifference. The radio had been tried, clicked on to something soulful and sad; about love lost. Isshin had winced apologetically, changed to another station. Pop music, then rock, before switching off the radio entirely. Ichigo had felt nothing about it, only wondered if Gin would have been wryly amused by it. 

  


After helping his father maneuver the gigai onto a stretcher, Isshin had asked Ichigo to come home with him, that he would come collect Ichigo’s car in the morning. There wasn’t any reason to stay in the apartment, nothing to tie him here any longer - Gin was gone, and Ichigo could take the manga papers with him - he’d numbly agreed. So here he sat, watching the lifeless copy of Gin’s face through the rearview mirror because he couldn’t bear to let Isshin cover it like Gin was truly dead. Not yet.

  


Isshin had tried to speak, to console or explain or maybe even seek understanding, but seemed to lose the words before more than a few could escape. Ichigo was glad. He didn’t want to listen and didn’t want to justify himself, wouldn’t know how to explain that he’d been drawn to Gin because Gin existed in the same wilderness Ichigo found himself lost in between life and afterlife and loss.

  


Maybe Isshin would have understood, but Ichigo didn’t want to talk. He’d talked himself out already to Shinigami who wouldn’t hear him. And maybe his father understood _ that _ as he didn’t press Ichigo for more, even if his worry was almost a physical presence inside the small van. 

  


If he thought about it, Ichigo could practically feel Yuzu’s fretting - all frantic energy and likely stress cooking - and Karin’s uncannily familiar frustrated anxiety, like they were in the van with him too. It felt like another failure on his part; he couldn’t stop the Shinigami from taking Gin, and his little sisters felt like they needed to console and protect him. That had been his job five years and a lifetime ago.

  


His friends probably knew by now too. Ichigo’s mind could conjure up their reactions as well: Chad’s simmering concern, real and rock steady controlled. Ishida; not understanding and pissed about it, still not able to move past his grudge against Shinigami. Ichigo didn’t blame him, he was feeling pretty sour towards the Shinigami himself. Or maybe Ishida was angry because of the hurt and confusion Orihime felt -

  


\- Like a hammer to the skull, it struck Ichigo that these thoughts weren’t his own imaginings. Too accurate, too in depth for his own distant empathy. (Worn away in the fog of mundane life, by his uselessness, by an inability to be understood.) Ichigo realised that, for the first time since he was fifteen years old, he was sensing reiatsu.

  


His next thought burned. Hot and vital like he hasn’t felt since Isshin told him to open a Senkeimon.

  


“Stop the car.” Ichigo commanded, his hands already unbuckling his seatbelt.

  


“What? Ichigo-!” Isshin’s glance was shocked.

  


“Stop the car.” Ichigo repeated, impatient. Isshin’s foot didn’t press the brake.

  


“You need to come home.” The words were gentle, kind. “Your sisters are worried too.” They were a rope.

  


“I know.” Ichigo said, even as he pulled the handle on the door, swinging it open, forcing his father to hit the brakes with a bitten off curse as Ichigo swung a leg out. “I just have something I need to do.” he tells his father, stepping out of the vehicle before it’s even come to a stop. He tries to conjure up a reassuring smile, doesn’t know if he succeeds. “Tell them I’ll be home later.”

  


Another thought occurs to Ichigo as he swings the car door shut. It was good that Isshin was already lowering the window, likely to try to convince Ichigo to see reason. Too late for that.

“Don't make Gin a death certificate.” he orders his agape father before Isshin can get a word out. He takes off at a run, ignoring Isshin’s cry of his name. 

  


Just under thirty minutes later Ichigo slows to a walk in the front yard of the Urahara Shoten. An involuntary gasp is forced out of his lungs as he steps across the threshold of the yard, finally sensitive to the innumerous advanced kido wards protecting the shop. Vulnerable to the pressure of them. The new feeling served as a stark reminder of just how much Ichigo had sacrificed five years ago. But there was a kindling of hope in the sensation too - he’d been right.

  


The shoji doors slide open easily. Only Urahara is in the front room of the shop - Tessai had likely herded Ururu and Jinta away to give them some privacy. Urahara was so completely familiar it was strange; still dressed in the same shame shabby, green, outdated clothes with his pectorals inexplicably hanging out, the darker green, loose haori slung over him like a security blanket, the bucket hat that looked like it was made from the corpse of a deckchair - just like always. He looked like he’d stepped out of Ichigo’s memories. 

  


“Ichi- Kurosaki-san.” Urahara greeted solemnly, tilting his face further into the shadow of his hat as he dipped his head. Ichigo had the feeling he was being looked _ through. _

  


“Did you know?” Ichigo asked his once-mentor bluntly. Grey eyes slid to meet his own.

  


“Not in time to make a difference.” Urahara said carefully, and at Ichigo’s suspicious glare a sardonic, self-recriminating smile had twisted his lips, “However they had caught on to Ichimaru-san’s continued survival, the members of Gotei had correctly assumed my involvement, and so took great pains to keep me in the dark.” 

  


Ichigo felt himself huff in acknowledgement. It made sense, and he was sure the sour notes in the other man’s voice came from finding himself caught out rather than being the one playing their cards close to the chest. 

  


And then Urahara pinned Ichigo with a look of his own. “I don’t think any of us could have imagined _ your _… entanglement in the matter.”

  


Ichigo bared his teeth. “You might have,” he said, tone bitter with hurts he hadn’t planned to voice, “if any one of you had considered that cutting me off from the spiritual world completely wasn’t for the best.”

  


He couldn’t quite read the expression Urahara adopted in response to that, thin-lipped and eyes narrowed - he decided that it didn’t matter. Whatever Urahara had intended with his absence, with maintaining the human-misdirection kido spells on the shop, it really didn’t matter compared to Ichigo’s plan to use him now. 

  


“We hadn’t even been sure it was possible for your reiatsu to recover on its own, and certainly didn’t expect it to within your _ human _ lifetime - the fact you have as much as this, and in this short a time-”

  


Ichigo cut him off. 

  


“I couldn’t see the Shinigami when they took Gin.” At Urahara’s widened eyes, he grinned, hard and sharp, “I couldn’t even sense them.” he went on, tossing the sharp-edged fact like a knife. It still cut him even in this moment. “It was like the room was empty except for us. Then Gin was gone too.”

  


“You mean-”

  


“Sometime this morning.” Ichigo confirmed. 

  


Urahara’s fingers tapped a staccato rhythm on his cane, seemingly in thought. Ichigo watched those long fingers, focused on the sealed Zanpakuto more than the man holding it. He ached for it.

  


The pale fingers tightened around the hilt, squeezing briefly before relaxing. Eyes flicking up, Ichigo saw that Urahara’s face was stone, the same forebodingly neutral expression he’d worn as Aizen was sealed, anguished and screaming, that had never flinched. He knew why Ichigo had come, and he’d come up with his answer. 

  


“What you’re asking for could kill you, Kurosaki-san.”

  


It almost made Ichigo laugh, a humourless thing, as though either of them could forget or ignore that he’d always hurtled in headfirst into danger - Seireitei, and then Hueco Mundo, and then the War - regardless of personal risk. As if either of them had forgotten that Urahara had always banked on it. 

  


“That never stopped you when I was fifteen.” Ichigo dared.

  


“Nor did the risk of you Hollowfying stop either of us before, too.” Urahara conceded wryly. His left hand reached up to adjust his bucket hat, tilting its shadow deeper over his face. “Very well, Kurosaki-san, it’d be an injustice to you to deny you this after everything. You recall where the ladder is? - I need to get Tessai in case the worst should happen.”

  


If he thought the unsubtle reminder of what had almost happened in the Shattered Shaft would dissuade Ichigo at all he made no production of it at Ichigo’s lack caution, merely receiving a nod that, yes, Ichigo still remembered how to access his underground training grounds, and he could probably feel the anticipation burning Ichigo’s insides through his fragment of reiatsu. “Very well.” Urahara said again, before turning and leaving through the door to the rear of the shop that lead to the shop residents living quarters.

  


It was almost comical that for their whole conversation Urahara had been standing on the false panel that concealed the ladder to the training grounds, and had still asked as though it was hidden away somewhere complicated. Ichigo shook his head, and began the long climb down the improbable ladder into the inhumanly possible room. His hands hurt by the time he reached the ground, all the sword callouses he’d built up over those months of fighting long gone. 

  


It wasn’t long before Urahara and Tessai joined him, casually dropping the several hundred feet distance and landing with barely a sound. Tessai was unsmiling, eyes hard behind his narrow, rectangular glasses. Like Isshin earlier, he didn’t seem to know what to say and his unhappy concern hung like a fog around him too. Ichigo only nodded to him in greeting before turning to Urahara, “I’m ready.”

  


Urahara didn’t hesitate. The strike came fast. 

  


Ichigo’s soul was forced out of his body in that sharp motion, his body dropping into Tessai’s arms like a ragdoll as his soul form staggered back. There was no Chain of Fate connected to his body, and Ichigo had felt some twisted chimera of guilt and relief at its lack, like his inability to sink back into mundane life hadn’t simply been his own failure, that he shouldn’t be happy about not being entirely human. 

  


Heavy, dense, boiling reiatsu leaked from his blackened right hand, almost a sword for an instant, before it swept out in a pitch-dark wave, forcing Urahara and Tessai back. It closed over Ichigo like a tomb.

  


Down. Down and down, deeper and deeper, Ichigo felt his consciousness dragged into the darkened depths of his soul. The world was still tilted, but instead of blue and clouds the sky was the consuming darkness of a moonless night. The buildings were neither skyscrapers nor recognisable as his hometown, instead they were concrete husks and steel bones, jagged and blacker against black. There was no water flooding his inner world this time, no wind either. Silent and seemingly dead, his inner world reminded him of nothing more than it did Hueco Mundo, but darker still than that hollow desert. So this was what had become of him, through nothing but his own choice and an incapability to tolerate pity. Ichigo felt surprisingly little about it. He couldn’t see either of the familiar spirits posed on the ruins or waiting in the shadows, so he started walking.

  


There was no measure of the time he’d spent walking, only the ruined shape of buildings ever changed and made for treacherous footing, and Ichigo had never bothered to count his steps. There was no destination, no end in sight. For all Ichigo knew the world was twisted and pointless and doomed as Penrose Stairs, and he’d already circled its entirety. Gin hadn’t been the only deviant in their not-relationship, Ichigo just hadn’t learned how to wear his own aberrations like armour, to stop trying to shape himself into what others wanted and needed and expected of him. Even with Gin, whom he’d let seduce him, let defile him with nothing more than token defensiveness. Ichigo realised that he’d wanted more from the other man. He’d wanted effort as well as the passion. He’d wanted more conversations that meant something - honest, real thoughts - instead of Gin’s own surface defenses and deflections and sex. Whatever that meant, Ichigo was resolved to pin the other man down and wring his own understanding out of him once he’d taken Gin back from the Shinigami.

  


And like the inkling of a fight had summoned the Devil-in-white himself, Ichigo heard the voice that had once been his greatest fear. 

  


“Well, well, well.” The discordant voice teased, “Looks like we aren’t dead, and the prodigal King even returns.” 

  


Once upon a time, that voice had meant a loss of control, had meant a battle for his sanity and the safety of others. It had meant that Ichigo was failing, and it’s cruel tones had been the whip, the bite, to drive him on and into greater levels of power. The possessor of that casually barbarous timbre had called himself Ichigo’s instincts, called Ichigo King and himself His Horse - for now - and claimed the name of his Zanpakuto too. After five years without those cutting notes, hearing them felt like finding himself again to Ichigo, felt like he’d finally wrested control of his life back. Ichigo’s teeth bared in a sardonic smile that wouldn’t have been out of place on his Double’s face as he looked up.

  


The Hollow Zangetsu leaned seemingly casual against one serrated steel rib jutting from broken concrete, a defiant moon-pale smear against the dark surroundings in a ragged grey-white cloak that seemed more like a suggestion than actual clothing. The spirit’s face was concealed behind the obsidian horned mask Ichigo had only seen once before - white slashes drew attention to the pale-fire eyes that bored into Ichigo’s own. In his right hand was Ichigo’s sword, even if the colour was inverted. Ichigo felt that burning gaze cut away from him, glancing to the focus of his own attention before slicing it’s way back to him with a bright, sadistic heat. “Long time no see, I~chi~go~.”

  


His name on those lips could mean anything, and the uncertainty made Ichigo’s skin prickle with restless energy. Was he still the King, or had they moved past that altogether? He didn’t know, and wondered if this brutal part of himself hated him for his altruism. Ichigo didn’t, couldn’t, but sometimes in his darker moments he’d wanted to. Today was a dark day. “Yeah.” 

  


Zangetsu cocked his head in silent study of him. The air had grown hot, humming. The sky rumbled with an unseen storm building in the gloom.

  


“You’re angry.” Zangetsu drawled like he was savouring the sensation. Ichigo could feel the malicious smile when he asked, “So, what’s got the King so pissed that he’s come crawling back?”

  


It wasn’t really a question when they both knew the answer. Ichigo answered it anyway, “There’s someone I need to take back.”

  


The spirit’s laugh was still a sound that set Ichigo’s teeth on edge and made his skin crawl. That wild cackle delighted in the prospect of violence in a way Ichigo could never allow himself to. This version of himself had no morals or complicated loyalties, cared only about the battles Ichigo was intent to face regardless of who he faced. Ichigo welcomed that savage side of himself now - mere survival wasn’t enough, he needed the strength to win, to protect Gin.

  


“Still the same brainless fool,” Zangetsu derided. “Letting things slip from your grasp, and so you come begging for power.” He flipped the white daitō in his grasp, an easy motion passing hilt over hand, over and over, both threat and taunt. “You were told that I don’t care about what _ you _ want to protect, Ichigo, but you were so afraid of losing that you begged for a shortcut to power to beat just one enemy. You threw away your crown, and now you think you can just ask for it back? You’re weak, Ichigo.” The motion of the daitō stopped.

  


“I warned you that I wouldn’t carry a King who was weaker than me.”

  


Ichigo was ready for it when Zangtsu vanished between one blink and the next, arms already braced to catch the blade aimed to cleave his torso in a wild one-handed swing - one of his hands gripping a pale, lean wrist in a steely grasp, and the other wrapping around the honed steel itself. It didn’t cut. He felt Zangetsu’s shock jolt through the arm he held captive, saw those hellish eyes widen from inches away.

  


“I wasn’t asking.”

  


Black reiatsu curls from where Ichigo’s hand held the daitō, travelling the length of the blade, painting it his own. “This,” he said, jerking it free of Zangetsu’s frozen grip and deftly spinning it so the hilt settled in his palm, “is _ mine. _” 

  


More reiatsu poured out of Ichigo, engulfing them both in the burning-dark wave. Ichigo feels the coat wreathing his frame with the same intimacy as the first time he’d ever released his Bankai. Red blooms on Zangetsu’s wrist, black reiatsu possessively coiling over him, wrapping him in the same cloak as Ichigo. More red spills from the mane about his neck. The mask on his face turned bone-white as Ichigo’s reiatsu had spread to it, the white markings inverting to black. So that was how he’d looked that time, when his human heart had been burned out of him by Ulquiorra and all his instincts had screamed unfettered that he slaughter his enemy. When he’d lost track of enemy and ally altogether. It was a sad fact that the lines had all blurred with time anyway.

  


Resentment burned in Zangetsu’s eyes. Even with the mask covering his face, Ichigo could see his embittered sneer in the narrowing of his glare. The arm he held was tense with arrested violence, oppressed by his reiatsu - Zangetsu did not trust him, hadn’t forgiven him for using the Final Getsuga.

  


It had taken him more time than it should have, but Ichigo had eventually understood that the sword he held while in his soulscape was only a token - his real Zanpakuto was the furious spirit fighting his grip. And Ichigo hadn’t accepted all of what he was yet.

  


“You’re right, Zangetsu,” Ichigo admitted evenly. “I was afraid. I was afraid and I let that fear rule me.”  


  
The words were a confession nobody else would have asked of him - He’d only been fifteen. It had been a war. Of course he’d been afraid - It wasn’t good enough for Zangetsu. It wasn’t good enough for Ichigo.  


  
“I convinced myself that so long as everyone was safe, that that would be enough. I lied.”  
  


Zangetsu laughed, a quieter chuckle that was somehow eerier than his usual cackle.

  


“You don’t need to tell me how you’re unsuited for the crown, _ King _.” he scoffed, “I lived it. Your cowardice made this world what it is.”

  


Dark and empty and dying. Zangetsu’s anger - Ichigo’s hidden self-loathing - was deserved. 

  


He’d chosen powerlessness over the risk of becoming a hollow, so afraid of the demon that had turned on his own friends that he hadn’t been willing to try to master it. Looking at this barren place, Ichigo realised that he’d just chosen to be a different kind of hollow. He’d felt nothing until Gin pried his emotions out of him.

  


He needed power to take Gin back, more than a Bankai, more than his Mask. Ichigo didn’t care if the Shinigami thought him a demon - he was done living dead.

  


Zangetsu strained forwards against the reiatsu binding him, seemingly bored with his lack of reaction, leering, “The next time your fear makes you falter, I’ll tear you to pieces and crush your skull.”

  


Ichigo's smile softened into something more genuine in response. He probably looked insane. “I won’t make you live up to that promise, Zangetsu.” He let go off the wrist held captive in his left hand, fingers instead coming to rest on one long, deadly horn. “I wasn’t able to follow your advice before - to stay alive until we could fight again for the ‘crown’. But I’m not afraid of this,” Ichigo said, pressing his palm firmly down the bladed edge. It drew no blood. “Not anymore.”

  


“Hah...so you do learn, King.” Ichigo felt the ceramic slide of the horn against his skin as Zangetsu’s head dipped, the slightest of bows. Stiff, like it was against Zangetsu’s nature. His voice still carried a taunt. “Even if you are slow about it.”

  


The world dropped away in a turbulent rush; dizzying, sickening, probably out of Zangetsu’s ever-willful spite.

  


All-too-suddenly, there was solid ground beneath Ichigo’s feet. He felt the weight of Tensa Zangetsu still in his right palm. Another weight dragged his head forwards a little. He could hear low mutterings of Kidou incantations buzzing on Urahara and Tessai’s lips. Reiatsu was thick in the air, thrumming against his own.

  


He should probably let them know it was him, in as much of a right mind as he’d ever had.

  


Ichigo opened his eyes to the underground training grounds. To the slight restriction of vision caused by his Mask that he’d used for so brief a time that it was only distantly familiar, and the totally unfamiliar obstruction of sword-like horns in his peripheral vision. Those would take some getting used to. Tessai’s fingertips were glowing with kidō. Urahara’s Zanpakuto unsealed and bleeding crimson power.

  


“I’m not out of my mind,” Ichigo said dryly, “just pissed.” The effect was somewhat ruined by the hollow warbling of his voice, and he definitely made at least Tessai jump a little.

  


Urahara recovers from his shock first. “I’m sure you understand our caution, Kurosaki-san.” he demurred, lowering his sword only a fraction. Still on edge. His eyes were polished flint as he assessed Ichigo. “Shinji never mentioned horns.”

  


“He wouldn’t have seen them.” Ichigo acknowledged. Only half concerned with the silence that followed as he adjusted to the incredible depth of reiryoku within reach. There was a light sheen of sweat on both Urahara and Tessai’s faces, both of them having to exert their own reiryoku to withstand the outpour from Ichigo. He reined in what he could, but couldn’t help the dark pleasure simmering under his skin at finding himself so strong.

  


“...Innoue-san had nightmares when she would fall asleep here during the month you spent unconscious.” 

  


Ichigo knew where this non-sequitur was going. Damned man was manipulative as ever.

  


“That was expected, of course. Innoue-san had been taken prisoner by an enemy, of course she would have experienced some kind of trauma.” Urahara hedged, his tone deliberately neutral. His posture didn’t change, still ready to attack, but there was something rueful in his next words.“She begged you not to die.” His voice hardened. “She also begged _ you _not to kill Ishida-san.” 

  


Even with an abyss tattooed over his heart, Ichigo felt the sting of the implication. “I…” Were there words to encompass what he doesn’t even remember doing? Just the bloodied aftermath? 

  


“I fucked up.” He said eventually. That much was abundantly true, even without the details. “I died for a minute.” His chest throbbed in phantom pain. Remembered anger flared with it. “Zangetsu isn’t a merciful part of me.”

  


“A full Hollowfication.” Urahara affirmed clinically, but his eyes were still assessing a threat. “Instant regeneration to survive the damage. Violent instinct to annihilate the threat. No recognition of allies. Correct?” He really didn’t need Ichigo’s affirmation, but it was given anyway.

  


“So why now?” Tessia quietly asked, sounding faintly harrowed.

  


“It’s not the same.” Ichigo shrugged.

  


Urahara seemed to have pieced something together.“You said ‘Zangetsu isn’t merciful’, am I to assume that your Shinigami and Hollow powers come from the same source?” Ichigo nodded, and Urahara frowned thoughtfully, murmuring “With acceptance comes control.” The words sounded as if from rote. Was that what was taught in the Gotei?

  


“Sums it up.” Ichigo said with finality. Talking could come later, when Gin was with him to milk Urahara for answers too. Time to see if the Shinigami had had the forethought to lock him out of the Dangai - he raised Tensa Zangetsu to chest level, channelling reiryoku and will into the steel, and turned the blade like a key.

  


Shoji doors parted from nowhere, a polite veneer splitting to reveal the yawning maw of an abyss. Ichigo wondered if he should be offended at the Shinigami’s short memory, as though he hadn’t regained lost powers to save someone from them before. He decided it was his gain as he stepped forward.

  


“The Gotei will see a threat.” Urahara cautioned.

  


Ichigo didn’t halt. “They can see whatever they want. I’m going to get Gin.”

  


If Urahara or Tessai had replied, Ichigo didn’t hear it. Four steps into the Dangai the portal behind him had closed, taking with it the warm light of the artificial sun. What little light remained was from a long way off, only the faintest grey tinge on the narrow corridor betraying the source’s existence. The walls oozed in slow rhythm, and bones crunched under Ichigo’s feet. There was no sign of the Kōtotsu, but Ichigo didn’t plan to linger anyway. As he ran, Ichigo wondered if he’d pass the spot where he’d stayed for months, locked in struggle with Zangetsu to learn the Final Getsuga; he wasn’t all that sure how the Dangai worked and he hadn’t put a lot of thought into it when he’d opened the Senkaimon.

  


It felt like too long before he saw his exit. The sight that greeted him was familiar and awful and stupid. There was a mountain, once, the top of it cleanly cleaved from the base. Ichigo wasn’t sure whether he should laugh or cry that his Senkaimon had led him back to the place where he sacrificed his powers and all of this pain started. At least it wasn’t a populated part of Rukongai, Ichigo didn’t want to terrify regular souls even if he didn’t care what the Shinigami thought, but it was far from Seireitei and Gin.

  


One bound took Ichigo into the skies over Rukongai, not even sure if he was using shunpo or sonido, just pushing _ faster _ towards the blinding white of Seireitei, high above the drab districts spread below. 

  


The outer walls encircled the city, Ichigo’s reiatsu probably having tripped some sensor of Kurotsuchi’s. He wouldn’t have needed Kuukaku’s cannon to break it’s defense, but the familiar reiatsu at watchful rest just outside of the _ disgustingly ironic _ Red Hollow Gate gave him pause. Straight blonde hair and a white Captain’s haori; Shinji had done well for himself. His Zanpakuto was already unsheathed, but rested easy at his side. Urahara had probably contacted him, Ichigo realised.

  


“Yo, Ichigo.” Shinji greeted, seemingly unperturbed as he cast a critical glance over him. His free hand waved in an encompassing gesture, “Gotta say that’s one hell of a fashion statement.”

  


“Are you going to try to stop me?” Ichigo asked.

  


Shinji heaved a sigh. “Not even worth a hello.” he muttered, “such an ungrateful brat.”

  


Ichigo couldn’t have stopped his eyes rolling. “Hey Shinji. Are you going to try to stop me?”

  


“Do ya love him?” Shinji asked, the words as blunt and distasteful as his insincere smile. Of course he had to flip the conversation on its head.

  


Ichigo shrugged. “I don’t know.” That turned Shinji’s smile upside down. Ichigo knew Shinji hated mysteries after what happened with Aizen, but he wasn’t about to do any soul searching just to sate the bastard’s curiosity. They’d both just have to live with that answer.

  


“Ya care for him though.” Shinji mused, probably more to himself than to Ichigo, but Ichigo knew how to answer that.

  


“More than I should.”

  


Those words seemed to give Shinji pause, his grey eyes flashing with something Ichigo didn’t know how to name. He sighed, and his smile reappeared, like he was amused at a private joke. Shinji took a step closer. And another. His sword low and ready, the gleaming tip of it raised at Ichigo’s chest. The white Captains haori he wore billowing with the movement. “I don’t understand ya at all, Ichigo.” Shinji drawled. 

  


The sentiment wasn’t new to Ichigo. “I didn’t understand why having no powers meant my friends couldn’t even bother to send a note.” He replied, idly looking at the black sword loosely grasped in his hand at his side rather than the Captain sizing him up like a wolf. The horns in his peripheral vision were annoying. He smiled, a little bitter. Shinji wouldn’t be able to see it past the mask. “Looks like we’re both at a loss.”

  


The quiet footsteps stopped. In the corner of his eye, below the deadly sweep of his horns, Ichigo could see the pale point of Shinji’s Zanpakuto dropping toward the ground. A hand landed on his shoulder. “Got me there.” Shinji admitted in a low voice. Was that regret? The hand on his shoulder tightened, “But is this really how you want to be seen?”

  


Shinji had probably meant for the question to give him pause, to trick Ichigo into calming himself. Guilt him into being something less terrifying.

  


“I’m not a Shinigami.” Ichigo stated. Unapologetic, unconcerned. The Shigami had abandoned him after everything. Had taken Gin from him when Ichigo needed him, long after both of them had stopped being any kind of threat to the Seireitei. Only when Gin was all that kept Ichigo from feeling like everything that had happened had been his own insanity. But his Inner Hollow was his Zanpakuto too, and he had come when Ichigo needed his strength. 

  


Maybe if he hadn’t been so afraid of it before he wouldn’t have lost everything. 

  


Maybe he wouldn’t have had Gin, wouldn’t have needed him. It didn’t matter now.

  


“Nah, yer a Vaizard Ichigo.” There was an apology in the tone of Shinji’s voice. He sighed again, and the hand on Ichigo’s stiff shoulder migrated until Shinji had his arm wrapped over both. It was a little uncomfortable for Ichigo; tugged on his overlong hair. Shinji didn’t seem to take any offense when Ichigo shook his head a little to free it. “You aren’t going anywhere without him, are ya.” It wasn’t a question. “We’ll help.”

  


“We?”

  


The question was met with a familiar smirk that had always meant trouble. “Open ‘er up, Kensei! Use those muscles!” Shinji called. There were a couple of shouts of “Shut up Shinji” that sounded like Kensei and Lisa, one sounding far more offended than the other, something that might have been Mashiro cheering Kensei on, and a very distinct roar of “You stupid Baldy!”, as an orange-yellow pillar of kido lifted the Red Hollow Gate, courtesy of Hachi. A barrier sprang into being as Ichigo and Shinji passed the portal, enclosing the two of them and the loose cluster of the other Vaizard; roomy for a conversation, just enough space for the Vaizard to surround him if it came to a confrontation. Smart.

  


A second barrier formed, a few feet outside the first. “Fer privacy.” Shinji murmured at his shoulder, just loud enough to be heard over the hushed chatter between the others. Kensei was grabbing hold of Mashiro by the back of her shihakusho, like scruffing a kitten, before she could throw herself at Ichigo.

  


Something was launched into the air.

  


Ichigo caught the sandal that could have been rocketing towards either his own or Shinji’s face in his left hand. His Hollow appearance didn’t deter Hiyori from getting right into his space, small fist slamming into his armoured stomach to no effect other than probably hurting her own hand given how she curled it into her chest. 

  


“Why do you wanna save an asshole like _ him _ !?” Hiyori demanded in a scathing tone, wildly gesticulating at Ichigo with her other hand. There was real anger in her voice. “He cut me in _ half _!” She bellowed. None of the other Vaizard said otherwise.

  


Ichigo hadn’t known that. He remembered the last time he saw Hiyori with vivid clarity, cleaved in two and her life uncertain even in Unohana’s hands. He’d believed it was Aizen’s doing then, but it didn’t come as a shock that Gin had been the one to do it - Gin had forfeited everything for an opportunity to assassinate Aizen, Hiyori’s death would have just been one more sin among many. He rounded on Shinji. 

  


“Why set this up?” he demanded, “I didn’t ask you to.”

  


Shinji had the gall to look offended. Hiyori let out a frustrated growl. There was a slap of skin on skin and the sound was muffled somewhat. Someone must have clapped a hand over her mouth.

  


It was Kensei who answered, firm and blunt. “Because we let you down. So we’re making up for it, that’s all.” He met Ichigo’s wary glance with cool respect. The nod he gave was an admission to shame, a resolve to right it.

  


Hiyori bit Love, freeing her face. “We’re _ only _ doing this for you.” she snarled, stomping her foot for good measure, “Ichimaru could fucking _ rot _ otherwise.”

  


She wasn’t exactly encouraging.

  


“You don’t owe me anything.” Ichigo stated, “I didn’t fight Aizen for you. I can’t make up for what Gin did. It’s enough if you just stay out of my way.” He couldn’t bring himself to care about the lives they’d clearly been rebuilding in the Gotei, but he didn’t intend to tear them down needlessly either.

  


Nobody seemed pleased by that. A half-circle of consisting of mostly unimpressed frowns and am apologetic grimace on Hachi’s round face. Perverse bastard that he was, Shinji started laughing; a throaty chuckle that made his shoulders tremble. 

  


“Ya always were an arrogant little shit.” He said, fondness and razor-glass aggravation in his voice, “We’ve all made our own choices since before you were a glint in Isshin’s eye, so fuck up with your hero complex a’right?”

  


Ichigo sucked in a breath, ready to argue - Shinji cut him off.

  


“It’s not up ta you, Ichigo. We’ll do whatever the fuck we want and that’s that.” One incautious hand caught the bottom of Ichigo’s mask, and even as Ichigo instinctively gripped the slender-steel forearm attached to it, he let Shinji pull his face to eye level. “Stupid shit on your tippy-toes,” Shinji grumbled lightly. His next words were remorsefully honest. “Before everything went to shit, I told the Old Man that we weren’t the Gotei’s allies, we were _ yours _.”

  


Ichigo flinched back, stricken and furious. “So why-”

  


“We fucked up.” Hiyori cut in mercilessly, bitchy as ever, shoving Shinji out of the way so she could glare up at him. “No amount of ‘sorry’s is going to fix it now, so just shut up and let us do this. You probably don’t even know where you’re going, Idiot Baldy.”

  


“I know how to find a spirit ribbon, you little gremlin.” He growled, offended, still reeling. Ignoring how Hiyori’s expression soured further, how she sucked in a breath and readied for a tirade. Ichigo hadn’t thought the Vaizard considered him one of theirs, more of an obligation. He’d known that they wanted their own revenge on Aizen, that they hadn’t been using him as a weapon, and it had made talking to them easier than Urahara at least. 

  


It hurt that these people who’d only taken an interest in him because of his Hollow, or maybe only because Urahara had asked them to, were willing to fight the Gotei for him now, when the friend he’d fought all of the Gotei for before would just follow their orders and take what little he had left. Would go talk to his _ dad _ and tell Isshin to pick up the pieces, rather than listen to him or even write him a note to try and excuse herself. It was bitter that Shinji and the others would fight for him in this, that _ Hiyori _ would, when Renji and Byakuya would disrespect him so much just because he couldn’t see them. When all of the Captains who’d broken into Gin’s apartment would.

  


There was a whisper-soft tap on the ground nearby. Ichigo’s horns meant he had to turn his head to see the cause, and the others followed his gaze.

  


“Maa maa~” Kyōraku sighed from outside Hacchi’s outermost barrier, just loud enough to be heard over Hiyori’s trailing rant. “This is a troubling scene.” The pink of his kimono was a vibrant splash against the white street. One broad hand gripped his sakkat delicately, and the other was half curled about the hilt of his longer Zanpakuto. His eyes belied his casual demeanor.

  


Shinji snorted, stepping directly into Kyōraku’s line of sight, clearly stating his role as ringleader for this shitshow. “It was pretty foolish ta underestimate Ichigo.” His smirk could be heard clearly in his voice. “Kid’s always managed ta pull whatever power he needed outta his ass, and break all known conventions doin’ it.” He shook his head. “And you all thought it’d be fine if you just left him there after pulling Ichimaru right out of his arms.”

  


“Yeah, that coulda been thought out better.” Love chimed in unhelpfully.

  


Kyōraku frowned at them, seeming somewhat cowed, before locking eyes with Ichigo over Shinji’s head. “Forgive us, Ichigo-kun. We didn’t treat you as we should have.”

  


As if that meant anything at all.

  


“Let Gin go and I’ll think about it.” Ichigo retorted, finally appreciating the eerie growl of his voice in this form as Kyōraku tensed. Hundreds of years of seeing Hollows only as an enemy would probably do that.

  


“It’s not as simple as that, Ichigo-kun.” Kyōraku said cautiously, his gaze involuntarily flickering to the markings and horns, to the black circle branding Ichigo’s chest. “Gi- Ichimaru was assisting Aizen for decades at least. We don’t know the full extent of his role, or why Aizen attempted to kill him.”

  


“Gin tried to kill Aizen, while I was training in the Dangai.”

  


Ichigo felt his temper rise at Kyōraku’s surprised expression. How it was echoed in the Vaizard around him.

  


Shinji twisted to face him, a suspicious frown on his face.

  


Unseen behind his mask, Ichigo felt his lip curl. 

  


“Did nobody ask Matsumoto what happened?” he grated out, furious disbelief colouring his words. “She was there. She’d held him until she thought he’d died, until she was pulled away to get medical attention.” Reiryoku leaked out of him, unbidden. “She thought her brother was dead.”

  


There was a thrum of worry, of discomfort at the dark oppression of his reiatsu. There were questions poised on the tips of tongues, needless questions he had no intention of answering for them. Needless distractions when Gin was still a prisoner. Ichigo was done with this. 

  


"Lower the barriers, Hachi." Ichigo commanded, too disgusted with the callousness of Shinigami, with their apathy, to continue talking any longer. The big man flinched at being addressed so curtly, but released the bakudō hastily. 

  


Kyōraku drew and was met with Shinji lifting his own blade to him.

  


"He's in the Senzaikyū." Shinji stated, his back to Ichigo as he stood sentinel between him and Kyōraku’s naked steel. He didn’t turn around, even as he added, “The Kidō Corps are already organising to unseal the Sōkyoku.”

  


Execution. Total annihilation of the soul. And without even the customary grace period.

  


There was a roar trapped behind Ichigo’s teeth. He could do it. Could scream and tear through the fabric of the worlds, call down whatever was left of the Vasto Lordes and Menos, bring Hell to their doorstep in a way he’d never forgive himself for. It would put Rangiku in danger, he told himself, and Gin would never forgive _ that _. He lets out a slow breath, pulls back his reiatsu.

  


“Thanks.” Ichigo manages, not trusting his voice any further, and pushes off in a burst of shunpo. There was a ring of steel behind him. And a rallying cry from Mashiro. The sounds fade between one breath and the next as his feet carry him forward, to Gin.

  


Seireitei is a thrumming hive of activity around him. Ichigo could feel the spikes and clashes of reiatsu as Shinigami Captains and Lieutenants were intercepted by the Vaizard. Soi Fon and Mashiro, already having donned her mask. Kensei and Toshiro, clashing, but neither of them escalating just yet. Love and Rose were holding off a group of Lieutenants. Hiyori had cut off Renji, both hot tempers rising in blazing novas as they released their Shikai. Kenpachi was an aimless thunderhead of power, hunting in the wrong direction. Yamamoto was a dragon in the distance.

  


Ukitake and Rukia had managed to give Hacchi and Lisa the slip.

  


“Ichigo, stop!”

  


The force of his anger at hearing Rukia’s voice shocked him, an emotional wound that burned black. He felt betrayed. 

  


He flash-stepped behind Rukia, faster than she could see and covered her eyes with a bone-white palm. Tiny fingers tried to pry it away. “You couldn’t bear to see me sad, Rukia.” He told her over the top of her head, watching Ukitake and daring him to move. His voice was a haunting thing, duel-toned as it echoed inside of the mask. “You don’t want to see me now.”

  


The hands clawing at his own stopped. “Ichi-”

  


“No.” Ichigo snapped, “I’m taking Gin and I’m leaving.”

  


“He’s a traitor! He’s lying to you!”

  


“For what?” he demanded. “Power? I couldn’t even feel you last night.”

  


“There was always a reasonable prospect that you would regain your spiritual powers in time, Ichigo-kun,” Ukitake said calmly, “it is suspicious that Ichimaru-san would get close to you if he truly planned to hide from the Gotei indefinitely.” 

  


Ichigo laughed in disbelief. “Gin never tried to get close to me,” he panted between waves of hysteria, “I almost ran into him in a supermarket, and he dragged me back to his apartment to stop me hyperventilating in the street.” At Ukitake’s questioning glance, he elaborated, “I hadn’t seen a Hollow or Shinigami in nearly three years, I thought I’d finally gone insane when I saw him. We talked. We drank wine.” That had been a strange day. A stranger night, one that had marked the road to here. “And then I left the next morning. Went back to my university dorm and my regular life.” 

  


“So why did you say you were s- why where you with him last night?” Rukia squawked, tugging at his hand again furiously. Ichigo let her, making it so easy that she stumbled forwards, almost falling if not for Ukitake. 

  


“What happened during the two years between then and now?” Ukitake asked, sounding like his father did when talking to anxious patients.

  


Ichigo gave a one armed shrug. “Nothing. I went to college, had a few unsatisfying relationships, got a job… and then one day I turned up at his door to bitch at him for everything. For being alive. For me feeling alone, feeling useless. For nothing changing. For ruining me on his touch.”

  


Rukia was staring at him as though she couldn’t comprehend him. (Not for having the appearance of a Hollow. Rukia had been one of the few that accepted that aspect of him easily, easier than he had. It had always been one of Ichigo’s favourite things about her.) She was staring at him like she couldn’t match up the teenage boy who’d become a shinigami to save his family, who’d fought anyone to save his friends, with the young man admitting he was lonely and sleeping with a former enemy. Ichigo didn’t think he was the one who changed the most.

  


“Chire, Senbonzakura.”

  


Rukia gasped and Ukitake protectively raised his reiatsu around them. Ichigo didn’t bother to dodge, allowed the petal-blades to vainly bounce off of his hierro. “You couldn’t beat me when we both fought in Bankai before, Byakuya,” Ichigo reminded him. “Don’t insult me.”

  


“Very well.” Byakuya agreed cooly.

  


“No!” Rukia wailed as Ukitake held her back, even as he himself tried to interject, tried to tell them to wait.

  


Byakuya’s reiatsu rose regardless of them.

  


“Bankai: Senbonzakura Kageyoshi.” The sky filled with gleaming fragments of blades. 

  


Ukitake retreated back, pulling Rukia with him. She hung like a doll against his chest, frantically mouthing ‘No.’, begging that her brother and her friend wouldn’t kill each other. 

  


Byakuya’s reiatsu continued to rise. “Shūkei: Hakuteiken.”

  


The storm of blades pulled in on itself, coalesced around their wielder to form a pair of ethereal white wings emerging from his back, crowned with a halo. It was poetic in appearance, like something from Western renaissance paintings. Like a scene Gin might have drawn for his manga. A Shinigami angel to Ichigo’s own demonic Hollow.

  


“That really is a beautiful technique.” Ichigo admitted candidly, probably sounding less sincere than he was due to his mask, admiring the graceful arcs of the shining wings. It certainly left and impression of nobility and strength.

  


“I use this technique in respect of your past deeds, Kurosaki Ichigo,” Byakuya intoned, “better that you be slain by it than continue to bring shame on yourself with your current actions.”

  


“You didn’t win with that technique last time.”

  


Byakuya chose not to acknowledge the jibe. “Ready your sword, Kurosaki Ichigo, and die with what honour you have left.”

  


Vicious humour at how little Byakuya had changed rose up in Ichigo. Despite everything five years ago, he still blindly followed the orders handed down to him, still defended a corrupt system and thought himself righteous. Whatever respect Ichigo had held for him was ashes. Byakuya insisted on this duel? Fine. Ichigo would show him exactly how far he’d fallen.

  


Ichigo _ moved _. Driving into Byakuya’s space. Forcing him off-balance. Tensa Zangetsu tore through one of those glorious wings as though it were made of paper. 

  


Rukia screamed in fright. 

  


The Hakuteiken shattered into pieces.

  


He caught Byakuya’s haori as the noble staggered. “I have _ nothing _ to be ashamed of,” Ichigo snarled, “I’m not the one willing to execute a man on sheer paranoia.”

  


“He’s a traitor.” Byakuya retorted, stubborn, contemptuous, ignorant.

  


“Gin had no intentions against the Gotei.” Ichigo corrected with a hiss, tossing him bodily at Ukitake and Rukia. “He’d always been aiming to kill Aizen. You might have learned that if you’d bothered to have a trial.”

  


"What makes you so certain, Ichigo-kun?" Was that apprehension in Ukitake’s voice? Was he doubting the Gotei’s verdict, uncertain of his judgement on the character of a man he’d been willing to condemn to not merely death, but to oblivion?

  


“Gin has a life.” Ichigo answered simply, ignoring the disdainful snort Byakuya gave from his place leaning on Rukia. Ukitake was passive, patient. “He has fans. Fans of his manga, because it’s beautiful, because he poured his heart and soul into the pages. Poured out his feelings of love, of loss, of honour and duty, the grey places in between them all where you can’t know who you really are...” The words caught in his throat and Ichigo shrugged, turning away, back to the white spire where Gin waited for his fate.

“Ichigo…”

  


“Gin didn’t seek me out, didn’t need me. He didn’t have a reason to lie to me when I asked him why he did it.” Ichigo finished.

  


There was a red explosion in the distance, hard to know if it was Renji’s Hikotsu Taihō or a Cero from Hiyori. Fights were still happening around them. Mashiro was down. Soi Fon had caught up to Lisa and Hachi. Had been joined by Kurotsuchi. Kyoraku and Shinji’s fight pursued Ichigo’s shadow.

  


In the distance, there was a glow at the base of the Sōkyoku, a promise of death Ichigo wouldn’t allow to be fulfilled. Gin wasn’t theirs to take.

  


“Don’t try to stop me.” Ichigo warned, directing the words mostly to Ukitake, before taking off.

  


No-one followed.

  


The streets of Seireitei blurred below him, Sōkyoku Hill and Senzaikyū a looming beacon growing larger with every step, their shadows swallowing the buildings around them. The landscape still bore the scars of Ichigo’s last fight with Byakuya, a deep fissure in the arching rock.

  


As he got closer, neared that hateful white spire, Ichigo felt anticipation ignite his body, like every inch of skin was millimetres from an electric fence. He wanted to touch Gin, to feel the coolness of his skin against his own, feel the tattoo of Gin’s heartbeat thrumming under his fingertips. He wanted it viscerally, so much that it ached in the estigma inked over his heart. Ichigo wondered just _ when _ Gin had become so vital to him, if he'd been doomed from that first night, with it’s thrill of danger that he’d foolishly ignored, the taste of wine on his tongue and the ache in his soul coaxed from him without pity, without expectation. As he ran, Ichigo wondered if him seeking Gin out again had been inevitable. 

  


The glowing at the base of the Sōkyoku dimmed. Faded into nothingness. 

  


Ropes still anchored the giant naginata to the earth, and no flame erupted from the blade. Someone else had interfered with the unsealing ritual.

  


Ichigo alighted on the smooth wood of the bridge before the tower on silent feet, to find Rangiku waiting there, her Zanpakuto sheathed on her hip, toying with a tiny wooden key in her hand. Somehow, Ichigo wasn’t surprised to find her here, but seeing her like this, her face pale and drawn and puffy, purple shadows like bruises swelling under her eyes, gnawed at his every protective instinct. Rangiku was naturally effervescent, mischievous, an irrepressible flirt with a soft, golden heart. Tatsuki had hit him for not telling her of such a gorgeous strong woman, until Orihime drew her ire by mentioning that Rangiku had roomed with her. She shouldn’t have to cry.

  


Rangiku mustered up a smile that fell just short of coy. “...Can we just pretend I said something incredibly witty and charming about you being horny?”

  


Ichigo snorted. It was the lightest he’d felt since the wolves had come for Gin. “Yeah.”

  


She laughed, short and strained and honest. “Thanks. I’ve a reputation to keep.” 

  


She was a lot like Gin, wearing a smile and a persona for armour.

  


Her expression was somewhere between approving and mournful as she tried to smile up at him, stretching the hand with the key out toward him. “It’ll hurt him if you cut the collar off.” 

  


Ichigo didn’t reach for the key.

  


“He did it for you, you know.” he said.

  


Anger, grief, _ fury, _ sent shudders through Rangiku, her hard-fought smile turned crooked with anguish. “I want to slap him for it.” Her voice was watery. “I hate him. I missed him for years.” A mottled flush darkened Rangiku’s features, eyes red-rimmed as stubborn tears won out and silently dripped down her cheeks, catching in the corners of her frown. She angrily scrubbed at her face with her free hand. “I thought I’d cried out all my tears when I grieved for that stupid bastard.”

  


Ichigo reached forwards, past the key in her outstretched hand and instead around her shoulder, tugged Rangiku into his chest. It was awkward, he’d had to tilt his head back to keep the horns out of the way. It was worth it. 

  


Something warm and wet hit his chest, followed by the tiny thump of a fist, barely felt. “I’m glad he has you.” she murmured into the skin of his neck.

  


“Come visit.” he rumbled.

  


Rangiku huffed. “It’s not that easy.”

  


“So come stay.” Ichigo whispered, the sound loud anyway through the echoing mask, “Gin can get a bigger apartment.” 

  


She thumped his shoulder again with the fist clutching the key, the fingers of her other hand twisting around his long hair where it fell about his waist as she clutched him tight. Rangiku shook her head.

  


“Gin told me once that he wanted to make this place better,” she scrubs her watery eyes with the heel of one hand, “make it so I didn’t have to cry anymore, hah. Asshole’s the reason for most of my tears... I don’t know if he knew about Aizen way back then, or what he really thought he could fix but… I can make a difference as a Lieutenant.”

  


Ichigo squeezed her tighter. It was no surprise the Gin loved her as fiercely as he did, the same way Ichigo would do anything for Karin and Yuzu. “Yeah, you will,” he affirmed with an easy confidence, “so come visit anyway.”

  


Rangiku laughed, bell-like, into his collarbone. Stretching up on her toes, she placed a sisterly kiss where Ichigo’s cheek would be on the mask and pushed away, dropping the key into his hand as she went. “Take care of him.”

  


“Why don’t you want to see Gin?”

  


“I want to slap him,” Rangiku answered smartly, eyes bright and expression almost her usual confident sass. “But I think I’d regret it.” She admitted, turning to leave.

  


“He missed you.”

  


“Who wouldn’t? Later, Ichigo.” She blew a kiss as she vanished in a burst of shunpo.

  


And then she was gone, leaving Ichigo with only a single door between him and Gin.

  


Rangiku hadn’t given him the key for this door: Ichigo pressumed she hadn't been able to lift it from the Kido Corps members she had incapacitated. He decided that he preferred it this way, preferred to tear open the stone door, render the austere cell entirely useless. A message that the Gotei couldn’t hold what belonged to him. 

  


Black reiatsu bled down the length of Tensa Zangetsu.

  


“Stand back, Gin.” Ichigo called, before slashing open the reiatsu-hungry stone. Chunks of sekkiseki crashed into the white-floored interior, the rubble raising a cloud of thick, chalky dust. A curl of reiatsu snaked free the wreckage; coldly furious.

  


Blue eyes pierced through Ichigo. “I tol’ ya not ta come.”

  


A red collar was wrapped around Gin’s throat, a ghoulish vermillion streak against the pale, delicate skin there. The right sleeve of his shihakusho hung empty. Dried blood strained his upper lip and chin, the uneven spread evidence of his attempts to clean it off. Bruises sat dark under his eyes, another on the right side of his mouth. Shinigami didn’t mark easily, not ones with as much power as Gin, unless he’d been rendered powerless. Fury swelled in Ichigo’s veins as he catalogued each injustice, each sign of disregard, of petty cruelty, that Gin had been subjected to.

  


“No, you said I couldn’t save you.” Ichigo corrected, stalking forwards into the cell, crowding Gin. He was subtly trembling from the effort to stand against the weight of Ichigo’s reiatsu.

  


“Same thing.”

  


“Too bad.” Ichigo hissed into his ear, clawed fingertips tugging the collar forwards so he could work the cylindrical key into the opening at the front. Gin stood tense as a bowstring as Ichigo worked, couldn’t stop his quiet gasp as the lock released, its binding on his reiryoku breaking, the trickle of his reiatsu rising into a tide before he reigned it in. Ichigo quietly revelled in it, a craving he hadn’t known he’d been starved of.

  


Gin forced him back with a rough shove, a humourless laugh escaping him. That twisted smile, the one that sometimes still haunted Ichigo’s dreams, telling him he wasn’t good enough, wasn’t strong enough, was back on his face. “All ya had to do was wait, Ichigo. Fifty? Sixty years? An’ ya woulda have been accepted back wi’ open arms, a returnin’ hero. Coulda had all yer friends back just the way it was.”

  


“That’s a lie.” 

  


That cruel smile didn’t let up, didn’t flicker. Gin cocked a brow, as though bemused by Ichigo’s flat denial. “An’ why’s tha’?”

  


“Because I’ve changed.” He ignored Gin’s disbelieving scoff, the sly, mocking ‘I can see tha.’, as he pressed back into the other man’s space, planting his hands on the wall on either side of Gin’s face, leaning in as much as the horns allowed him and daring those eyes to open. “Because not being able to fight, to protect; being the one protected instead and knowing it with every apologetic glance, changed me for the worse.” Ichigo admitted brusquely, “But not enough that I could just let you die.”

  


Gin’s eyes slid open and Ichigo felt a shock of lust lance through him. Gin could seduce a stone with those eyes, and Ichigo was the furthest thing from immovable, from unfeeling, when faced with that intense gaze. His weakness must have shown because Gin chuckled darkly. 

  


“Ya really shouldn’ get so easily attached.”

  


One thin arm gripped Ichigo’s wrist, flipping them dizzying rush and pinning him against the wall. Tensa Zangetsu clattered to the floor. Gin had always been so much stronger than his appearance suggested. Ichigo couldn’t will himself to push back, to break the hold Gin had on him. Gin’s warning had come far too late. “Stay still.”

  


Ichigo did.

Gin wedged a leg between Ichigo’s, pressed their clothed bodies flush. His lone hand abandoned Ichigo’s wrist to snake about his throat and squeeze, tilt his head back; mindful and unafraid of the scything horns. He pressed a lingering, exploratory kiss to the surface of Ichigo’s mask, and Ichigo could faintly feel his tongue trace the outline of one sharp tooth. The dark, hungry, Hollow part of Ichigo wanted Gin to cut himself on it, to feel his hot blood pour through the gaps and drink the other man in. Or maybe he wanted tear off the mask and kiss him back. It was hard to know. Gin kissed his mask with half-open eyes; that familiar, hungry gaze devouring Ichigo instead. 

  


“‘Course you take hunger t’ a whole new level.” Gin sneered, his hand tightening further. 

  


Black spots danced in Ichigo’s vision. He can’t breathe.

  


Gin doesn’t let up.

  


He can’t _ breathe _. Can’t bring himself to fight back, to hurt Gin. All of this and Gin might kill him, might be the bastard traitor everyone had thought and do what Aizen couldn’t. And Ichigo let him. Gasped for a breath that wouldn’t arrive until even his mask parted at the teeth in a silent scream for oxygen. Until most of the reishi covering his face dissolves into nothingness, leaving only a crown of horns.

  


Gin surged to claim his mouth, hot tongue ruthless and plundering and perfect. Ichigo trembled in his grip; died for what felt like an eternity before Gin gave him air again.

  


“Ya’re pathetic.” Gin sighed, still pressed so close that Ichigo inhaled the words, his hand dragging down Ichigo’s torso, pulling the tight coat open to expose white skin marked with black bands and the dark, circular estigma over Ichigo’s heart. Hierro meant that Ichigo hardly felt the chill of his fingertips. Gin frowned at the lack of reaction. “Ya shouldn’t ‘ave come.”

  


“You’re here.” Ichigo gasped out. Gin’s hand was at his throat again.

  


"I left willin'ly." he hissed, his fingers curled in a crushing grip once more for a heartbeat before relaxing. He was still pressed so close that Ichigo could taste his breath, feel the thigh pressed intimately to him. Gin had left willingly the same way Ichigo had used the final Getsuga willingly - because it was the only way he knew how to protect. Ichigo didn't need protecting. 

  


"You're mine." Ichigo snarled back; barely knowing what he’d meant by those words, only that they felt _ right _ . It wasn’t ownership. Wasn’t love, wasn’t companionship. It wasn’t _ not _ any of those things either. The only thing Ichigo knew for certain was that Gin was an addiction he couldn’t bring himself to kick. Wouldn’t try to.

  


One pale silver eyebrow rose above half-slitted eyes. Gin glanced up at Ichigo’s hands - clenched into tight, shaking fists; but still where Gin had put them. His frigid gaze met Ichigo’s burning gold-on-black eyes, so cold and sharp that Ichigo couldn’t breathe for a whole new reason.

  


A smile lacerated Gin’s face -

  


\- and Ichigo crashed to his hands and knees with a loud shriek of horns scraping stone.

  


Jarred and dizzy, Ichigo felt Gin’s lean weight settle over his back, felt fingers clench tight on his nape when he tried to lift his head. Something dark tore at Ichigo’s insides: a thrill, a hunger, a twisted desire for more. “Gin...” he breathed, unsure, unable to ask.

  


“Does it still feel like I belong to you?” Gin murmured into his ear, voice dark and rich and poisonous. Ichigo shuddered at the words, at the implication behind them. Gin was his, but he’d long surrendered to the other man.

  


“Please.”

  


“I s’pose tha’ answered my question.” Gin allowed, letting go of Ichigo’s neck. His hand dragged over Ichigo’s spine in a languid pet. His voice was seductive whisper when he asked, “Please wha’, Ichigo? What do ya want?”

  


Desire coiled hot in Ichigo’s belly, every inch of skin alight with anticipation. Gin’s presence consumed his thoughts. “Touch me.” 

  


Gin laughed wickedly, “Oh, aren’t I already?” The hand retraced it’s path down the length of Ichigo’s body.

  


“Please.” Ichigo growled, begged. Uncaring of his pride, of where they were, of who might see.

  


“Needy.” Gin admonished, though didn’t keep the sinful pleasure from his voice. Ichigo could only nod, breath caught in his throat as Gin’s hand slid around his waist, knuckles subtly rubbing his growing hardness as Gin slowly dragged his obi open. Ichigo rolled his hips into the touch, hissing at the short-lived relief. Gin’s chuckle was a purr, darkly delighted.

  


Ichigo’s hakama slid away, unsupported, and Gin made fast work of ridding Ichigo of his fundoshi as well. He shivered as the cool air caressed his cock, as Gin traced the vein on the underside with his thumbnail. Even with his Bankai cloak still concealing his nudity, Ichigo still felt palpably the imbalance of their states of dress, still felt exposed and vulnerable. Gin’s fingers felt only just warmer than the air as he took Ichigo into his fist, moving in slow, firm strokes that left Ichigo gasping, slicking themselves on the precum beading at the head.

  


“Never knew ya could look like this,” Gin murmured softly, almost wonderingly, as he methodically worked Ichigo into a trembling wreck, fighting and failing to stay quiet, “pale as new snow, hair like tha burning trail of a star…‘s beautiful.” Ichigo gasped as he added a twist to his next stroke, shaking like a leaf caught in an autumn storm, a litany of fragmented pleas tumbling from his lips.

  


Consumed by passion, Ichigo was loud; his babbling reverberated off the walls of the tall cell in a wanton chorus. Gin’s teeth scraped harshly down his neck, down his shoulder, dragging a moan from Ichigo that filled the room in a swell of sound. Clawed fingers dragged deep furrows into the stone floor. Ichigo struggled in Gin’s hold, head tossing as he fought his building orgasm, spine arching taut as his arms gave out, collapsing onto his elbows. It wasn’t enough.

  


“More.”

  


Gin hummed into his neck, and the hand gripping Ichigo sped up it’s movements, sliding faster, rougher down the length of him until Ichigo lost all words, lost all sense of everything beyond the weight of Gin at his back and the perfect circle of his fingers. It was relentless, merciless. A deft thumbnail cruelly caught on the glans, tracing a line of fire that sent Ichigo over the edge. 

  


When Ichigo came it felt like the earth shattered, like it took him to pieces with it, like every cell in his body was a supernova burning out all at once. Gin’s name was a breathless howl into the stone below him, a carnal veneration of ecstasy, of ruination, as he succumbed to pleasure at the other man’s touch.

  


When the fractured remnants of Ichigo’s consciousness returned to him, he’d found himself drowsing, leaned heavily into Gin’s shoulder as his lover cleaned his hand of Ichigo’s come with only his mouth. Blue eyes had flicked to meet his gaze and Gin smiled slyly at Ichigo’s suddenly avid attention, unashamedly licking his palm free of the last of it, radiating smugness. 

  


A lazy warmth settled in Ichigo’s spine, too wrung out for more and feeling strangely soft. He didn’t think about it too much.

  


Ichigo rose so he could pull Gin into a selfish kiss, the angle imperfect, stopped by his horns, but Ichigo revelled in it, tasted himself on Gin’s tongue and swallowed his quiet laughter, feeling it tingle on his lips. He drank Gin in like a man dying of thirst, tongue chasing into every crevice and sliding against Gin’s own. His hands weren’t idle, curling at Gin’s nape and slipping under his kosode, exploring an unknown scar and the steady drum of Gin’s heart. Gin stopped him when his hand slid lower.

  


“Time ta get dressed, Ichi.” Gin sighed, rueful, as he pulled away, “Think we kept our audience waitin’ long ‘nough.”

  


Concentrating past the dull thrum of the sekkiseki walls to his reiatsu, Ichigo realised that Gin was right; beyond the door the fighting had stopped, and on the scarred landscape of the Sōkyoku Hill waited a kangaroo court in the shadow of an execution stand. Begrudgingly, Ichigo dressed; refusing the panicked, helpless hurry of when they took Gin. He wasn’t powerless, he’d promised to fight and to win.

  


Gin waited with seemingly endless patience, but Ichigo saw the falseness of his grin. It was one thing to decide you were ready to die, and another to face the consequences of living after the fact. Ichigo didn’t imagine it was any easier the second time around. He didn’t push for honesty, only picked up Tensa Zangetsu and stepped closer, almost touching, “Kiss me?”

  


“No ti-” Gin shook his head, “_ Not _ th’ time.”

  


“After, then.” Ichigo swore, eyes dark with a quiet, patient determination as he drew his left hand over his face, restoring his mask, and followed Gin out of the door into the reddish twilight.


End file.
